An Integrative Approach to Cardiovascular Health: What’s Missing in Conventional Cardiology, A Holistic Approach to Mind-Body-Heart Healing, The Power of Community, and How Essential Oils Aid Heart Health

Table of Contents for this Integrative Cardiovascular Health Article:

• The month of the heart
• How modern medicine is failing our hearts
• The modifiable and uncontrollable risk factors for heart disease
• The great cholesterol debate
• The pros and cons of statin drugs
• The mind-body-heart link
• The gender gap in cardiovascular care
• How essential oils support heart health
• The impact of community and strong relationships on cardiovascular outcomes
• My community membership program

 

The Month of the Heart

February is the only month in the Western world associated with an organ, the heart. This is in part due to Valentine’s Day. Although some may believe it’s a secular conspiracy to earn more profit for the chocolate, flower, and greeting card companies, February 14^th has a vast cultural history. From the ancient Roman ritual of Lupercalia, that welcomed spring, to the card-giving customs of Victorian England, it is a day dedicated to celebrating romantic relationships and proclaiming our gratitude for those we care about.

This month also draws attention to our cardiovascular system because it was federally designated that way. “American Heart Month” was proclaimed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on December 30,1963 (via Proclamation 3566).

Interestingly, this co-occurrence of an unofficial holiday centered around love and the promotion of heart health is connected in a meaningful way, even if unintended. Research shows strong relationships can help to protect us against cardiovascular disease. In other words, connections and community are literally healing to our hearts.

 

Modern Medicine is Failing Our Hearts

Unfortunately, even though the intent of this national decree was to place more focus on how to keep our pumping organ thriving every year, it hasn’t been improving our poor heart health outcomes. In fact, the CDC states that cardiovascular disease (CVD) continues to be the leading cause of death in the United States, with heart disease killing one person every 34 seconds! It is becoming obvious that we need a new approach to upgrade our cardiovascular treatment.

So, in today’s video post, I will summarize some of the most important information to consider when caring for your beloved organ. You will discover why conventional medicine is missing the mark to mend our hearts and why we need an integrative and holistic approach. I’ll also describe how essential oils benefit cardiovascular health.

Topics include:

• Risk factors for heart disease, both uncontrollable and modifiable
• The great cholesterol debate
• The benefits and side effects of statin drugs
• The mind-body-heart link
• The gender gap in cardiovascular care
• How essential oils benefit cardiovascular health
• The importance of community and relationships for healthy hearts

As always, all the references and resources I mention will be available in this accompanying post.

So, let’s get started.

 

Risk Factors for Heart Disease

According to WebMD (*mine):

There are risk factors for heart disease that you have control over and others that you don’t. Uncontrollable risk factors for heart disease include:

• Being male
• Older age
• Family history of heart disease
• Being postmenopausal
• Race (African American, Native American, and Mexican American people are more likely to have heart disease)
• *genetics

Heart disease risk factors that you can control revolve around lifestyle. These include:

• Smoking
• Unhealthy cholesterol numbers (see below)
• Uncontrolled high blood pressure
• Physical inactivity
• Obesity (having a BMI greater than 25) (*this is associative)
• Uncontrolled diabetes
• High C-reactive protein (*inflammatory marker)
• Uncontrolled stress, depression, and anger
• Poor diet
• Alcohol use
• *there’s a missing factor on this list (more on this below)

The American Heart Association’s checklist is another means to measure cardiovascular health risk. It was recently updated from seven factors to Life’s Essential 8™. The original seven included nicotine exposure, physical activity, diet, weight, blood glucose, cholesterol, and blood pressure. Healthy sleep is the newest addition that rounds out the eight aspects.

Clinically, The American College of Cardiology offers a calculated measurement for physicians to determine their patient’s risk for a cardiovascular event within ten years. Their Atherosclerosis Cardiovascular Disease (ACVD) Risk Calculator is based on age, sex, race, blood pressure, history of diseases, lifestyle factors, and cholesterol levels.

Although there are many factors mediating heart disease, high cholesterol often gets the most attention in media and mainstream medicine. Due to its popularity, and the controversy surrounding its role, this waxy lipid substance deserves a spotlight here as well.

 

The Great Cholesterol Debate

Cholesterol is essential for life. Your body requires it to produce cells and synthesize vitamins and hormones.

The relevancy of having high cholesterol levels in relationship to heart disease risk is a contentious debate in medicine; maybe even more so than the treatment of it. The subject is complicated and mortality outcomes for lowering cholesterol has been mixed in the literature.

The impact of high cholesterol on heart and overall health is not simple. It is based on many interwoven factors that interplay with it.

The aspects associated with the influence of high cholesterol on CVD, from an integrative, naturopathic, and functional medicine perspective, include the consideration of:

• inflammation levels
• endothelial (blood vessel) health
• one’s microbiome
• lipid particle size and protein levels
• blood sugar and insulin levels
• dental health (the oral microbiome)
• immune health and underlying stealth infections (Lipids can bind microbial toxins and neutralize viruses, therefore, high cholesterol can signify stealth infections.)
• environmental toxins
• thyroid health (Thyroid hormone is needed for cholesterol utilization.)
• cholesterol absorption, excretion, and production factors
• liver and digestive health
• dietary cholesterol (This is another subject of debate. It is likely not as impactful as once thought, at least not for everyone. That’s a whole other article!)

The fact that cholesterol levels can rise or fall based on so many different biological processes and external triggers has caused many physicians and scientists to have different viewpoints on how to address it, if at all.

Therefore, one of the first things that naturopathic and functional medicine doctors do when someone has high cholesterol is to seek to find out why. Unless there are dangerously high levels that must be treated immediately, they will take time to uncover the contributing causes. From there, they will decide on the best treatment course, in conjunction with one’s specialist.

For example, if a patient or client has an underlying chronic stealth infection, high cholesterol may be serving as a protective factor to help the body clear the microbes. In this case, a holistic approach would be to support immune health until the body has regained its vitality to resolve the microbial imbalance.

In another instance, one’s thyroid could be low functioning (hypothyroid). In this scenario, suppressing cholesterol with statin medications would only be addressing the symptom. A naturopathic and functional medicine doctor would make sure that hormones were brought back into balance and that enough cholesterol was available to make these hormones. Once the underlying hormonal stressors are relieved, cholesterol would be reassessed to see if medication or supplemental support for lowering lipids is still needed.

Here’s where we enter another major controversy, also related to cholesterol.

It’s the use of statin drugs for treatment, cholesterol’s “S” word.

 

Cholesterol’s “S” (Statin) Word – How Beneficial are Statin Drugs?

Rather than debating the efficacy of statins, it’s probably best to just stick with the numbers. This includes the number need to treat (NNT) and the number harmed per person from taking them.

The NNT and number harmed for those taking statins as primary prevention, i.e., for people without known heart disease, across 5 years are:

• 104 people need to take a statin to prevent one non-fatal heart attack
• 1 in 50 can develop diabetes and 1 in 10 can have damage to muscles as a side effect

For those with known heart disease:

• 1 in 39 non-fatal heart attacks are prevented and 1 in 83 lives are saved
• The number harmed remains the same as above

The bottom line is that statins may help some people, but we must also weigh the benefits with the risks.

Side effects of statins include muscle damage, muscle soreness, blood sugar deregulation, and neurological impact. Some of this can be mitigated with proper supplementation for the nutrient depletion that results from drug-nutrient interactions. For example, supplementing coQ10 may help with muscle soreness.

 

The Mind-Body-Heart Link: The Power of Social Connection, Relationships, and Mental Health

Drugs, supplements, and lifestyle interventions are often what is most promoted for aiding heart health in conventional and integrative medicine. Yet, relationships, socioeconomics, and mental health are as essential and often ignored.

In fact, relationships are a key mediator for mortality and other co-occurring symptoms related to heart disease. Perceived loneliness and isolation are now validated as substantial risk factors associated with cardiovascular mortality. Additionally, lack of social support has been found to correlate with high inflammation. This causes strain on all aspects of the body, not just the heart.

Furthermore, mental health issues, such as  depression and anxiety, also increase and compound one’s risk for heart disease and compromise recovery.

On a positive note, healthy relationships decrease the risk of one suffering from a repeated heart attack and can buffer the negative stressors on the heart. If you ever doubt how powerful social connections are to health, look up the Roseto effect. It highlights how strong community bonds in Italian immigrants mitigated the heart disease risks of unhealthy habits.

Therefore, one can’t fully optimize the heart with a drug, supplement, or lifestyle intervention, as they only address misaligned biochemistry. The neurobiological and mind-body aspects of love and connection are powerful “medicines” that are needed to heal hearts and minds around the world. They boost all other things that affect physical cardiovascular function and overall wellness.

 

The Gender Gap of the Heart

Another issue with our modern approach to heart disease is the gender gap. CVD is often under-recognized in biological women and minorities. This is because these populations may present with different symptoms than those with the typical, more recognizable warning signs of heart problems more prevalent in biological males. This means that both doctors and patients could mistakenly attribute signs of heart issues in women to hormonal, digestive, and/or mood imbalances, which are perceived to be more common in this gender.

There is also the misconception that heart disease risk is gender specific, affecting mostly men. Sadly, many women are not even aware that CVD kills more females than breast cancer.

Furthermore, women tend to be more dependent on emotional connections than men, meaning loneliness could be especially detrimental for them. Additionally, fluctuating hormones, especially estrogen, impacts the heart in powerful ways. Therefore, doctors need to consider the heart as a prominent contributor to various symptoms in young and older women.

Recently, a study reported on several additional cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors associated with heart disease risk in women. They were not biologically based, rather they were social determinants of health. These included:

• economic stability
• neighborhood safety
• working conditions
• environmental hazards
• education level
• access to healthcare

All of these are upstream precursors that are not well-known and affect treatment and compliance.

 

Essential Oils for Heart Health

Just like love impacts our mood through influencing our neurological signals and our emotional brain, essential oils do as well. If we draw this parallel, these precious allies can literally stimulate love and heart health.

For this reason, as well as many others, these aromatic molecules are one of my favorite integrative and holistic tools to promote cardiovascular health. Furthermore, they can also enhance emotional resiliency, stress relief, and hormonal balance for better intimacy skills and stronger relationships.

Along with their mind-body–soul and stress alleviating benefits, essential oils can additionally support heart health through their biochemical properties. In fact, their compounds mediate various triggers that can lead to poor circulatory function. This is through:

• acting as anti-inflammatory agents and antioxidants
• promoting circulatory flow
• mediating neurotransmitters and hormones
• boosting immune response
• helping the body to detoxify toxins
• and more…

My episode on heart health on the Essential Oil Revolution podcast provides a summary of all things related to cardiovascular care and essential oils including how they:

• address under-recognized triggers of heart issues
• modulate various heart disease risk factors
• balance the mind-body-heart connection

I also highlighted some of my favorite single essential oils and oil blends that support heart health. You can grab the link to the episode and additional resources here.

 

Summary: The Heart-Brain-Body Link and Essential Oils for Better Cardiovascular Heath

Heart disease continues to be the number one cause of death in America. There are both unmodifiable and lifestyle factors that can contribute to cardiovascular risk; however, some of the most important influences, such as socioeconomic conditions, mental health, and relationships, are often ignored.

We need an integrative approach that incorporates the links between the mind, body, heart, soul, and relationships. These should be incorporated into personalized and holistic approaches to address the root causes of cardiovascular disease, beyond just physical risk factors.

In my opinion there are three main areas of focus that we can do nationally and globally to improve heart health. These include:

• fostering social connections, which are as essential for cardiovascular care as lifestyle, supplements, and drugs.
• emphasizing mind-body approaches, such as essential oils, which can promote emotional and physical wellness and healthier relationships.
• from wellness communities to help people connect to other like-minded individuals with the common goal of optimizing mind-body-heart health.

 

My Community Membership for Holistic Mind-Body-Heart-Soul Health

Before we end, I wanted to highlight the last point of emphasis on wellness communities. This is something I have taken seriously. Although there is no replacement for face-to-face interaction, we can leverage technology in a positive way to create more opportunities to connect. This is why I created my own community membership program.

My community program contains continual and exclusive updated information and research on essential oils and holistic health, a discussion forum where you can interact with like-minded members, a full essential oils course curriculum, my essential oils database, Q&As with me, and more!

Those who subscribe to my community also receive bonus resources and videos. If this resonates with you, you can learn more about this program and the opportunity to be a community member here.

In closing, I want to thank you all so much for taking the time to learn how to nourish and nurture your mind, body, heart, and soul.

I would love to hear from you about your favorite lifestyle practices, mind-body techniques, and essential oils for heart health. Feel free to post them in the comment section.

Also, please share what I can do to support you more. Your feedback helps to guide my focus on topics for my blogs and social media.

Sending you many blessings and much love.